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Green, Richard, 2010 June 17

Biographical / Historical

Richard Green was born in Tela, Honduras in 1948 and grew up in various locations
in Brooklyn. He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School, served in the Marines, achieved
an undergraduate degree at Marist College and attended a graduate program at the State
University at New Paltz. Beginning in 1969, he was a permanent fixture of the Crown
Heights neighborhood and raised his children there. In 1977, Green founded the Crown
Heights Youth Collective and he still served as the Chief Executive Officer in 2016.
He also co-founded the Street Outreach Program, has worked with five New York mayors
as of 2016, and assisted with Project Cure, a community healing organization formed
in the wake of the Crown Heights riot. Since 1993, he has taught as an adjunct professor
at Medgar Evers College. He has served on boards, as a trustee or a member, of several
high-profile government and public services departments for New York City. Green has
been heard on radio as a commentator and producer. He is a husband, father and grandfather.

Scope and Contents

Richard Green speaks briefly about his upbringing in Brooklyn. He speaks at length
about the informal beginnings of the Crown Heights Youth Collective and in general
about the meaning of youth centers to a community. Park gatherings were an early form
of the collective. Green reflects on when he met Cecil Simon, the co-interviewer as
well as a narrator of another oral history in this collection. Simon asks for Green's
observations on changes in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Green traces
the recent history of the area, including the relationship between the Black and Hasidic
communities, the riot in 1991, and the two decades that followed. Simon discusses
his high school experience, the importance of literacy and kindness in street culture,
and his incarceration. Richard Green speaks about the teens with whom he works, their
assumptions and the collective's workspace. He relays the historical benchmarks of
many areas in Brooklyn. Green opines on redevelopment and the fallout in communities.
He comes back to the Crown Heights Youth Collective, where he instills values and
goals in the members. Interview conducted by Cecil Simon and Alex Kelly.

Conditions Governing Access and Use

Access to the interview is available onsite at the Brooklyn Historical Society's Othmer
Library and online on the Oral History Portal. Use of the oral histories other than for private study, scholarship, or research
requires the permission of BHS. For assistance, contact library@brooklynhistory.org.